The Walmart MP3 store has always seemed like the third wheel of online music stores behind Amazon and iTunes. Sure, it offers up DRM-free MP3s, but it only worked for Windows users on IE, which limited its appeal. But now, Walmart has finally added support for Mac and Linux users, as well as Firefox and Safari support across all platforms. That goes a long way towards making it a real alternative place to buy music. They've also dropped the price of many tracks to as low as 74 US cents each. Do these changes make you want to give Walmart.com a second look? [Walmart via Electronista]

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Nokia may rule a large portion of the worldwide mobile phone market, but you know, with the economy and everything, it never hurts to diversify. Nokia is setting up musical benches throughout the UK to promote their Comes With Music audio service, each featuring three integrated handsets with headphones to sample music.

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I'll admit this is a teeny bit tenuous, since the Hacha PF02 is only an MP3 player while the Vertu Signature is a fully-fledged and bejeweled mobile phone...but you have to admit the lookalike-ness is pretty amusing. And the fact that a $US15 naff screenless MP3 player with 2GB of storage, USB 2 connectivity and MP3, WMA and OGG files compatibility can pump out your tunes while a $US10,000 mobile phone can't is priceless. [Product page via GadgetLab]

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SanDisk's grand plan to revolutionise the music industry: selling individual albums preloaded onto SD cards, made by them, to be played on SD card players, made by them. The concept is definitely attractive in some ways. The tracks are 320Kbps, DRM-free MP3 files, the SD cards are reusable and the screenless slotMusic players costs next to nothing. Major label albums are priced at a competitive $US15, and can be played without the need for transfer from a computer, though you can load other SD cards with up to 16GB of music and play them, too.

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A Brazilian artist named Vivian Caccuri has put together an installation that uses the movements of live fish to remix the music played on an MP3 player. These fish are tracked using a proximity sensor and their activities trigger adjustments in processing levels, distortion and speaker fade to create a unique sound. Sure, it is about as pointless as snails being used to send email, but it is definitely relaxing to watch. [Vivian Caccuri via Crave]

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Did you think that records would stand idly by while MP3s took over the music industry? Sure, they turned a blind eye to 8-track and cassettes. Then CDs got a pass, too. But those were physical mediums, brothers-from-another-mothers. And if compact discs don't have the cojones to stand up to the digital music revolution, vinyl will just have to come back from the dead and start kicking some 1s and 0s butt.

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Amazon's just officially announced that the Amazon MP3 Store will come pre-loaded on the HTC G1 Android phone. It's a special optimised version of the store which lets T-Mobile G1 users "search, download, buy and play music from Amazon MP3." That means six million DRM free songs from major and independent labels will be at the fingertips of G1 users, though you need Wi-Fi to download tracks (browsing and sampling can be done over the phone network) and albums cost less than $US10 with individual tracks going for around $US0.90. Press release below.

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Sandisk's slotMusic cards are not much more than tweaked 1GB microSD cards with a logo and a special USB-compatible sled: but the fact that they'll carry albums from big names like BMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group makes them interesting. They'll also be DRM free too, which is a pleasant surprise. It's an attempt to change the way some people buy MP3s—you'll get a card you can slot into your mobile phone or PC with high-quality MP3s (up to 320kbps), artwork, videos and such, which you can also reuse as a 1GB memory card later, and that's kinda handy.

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We've seen turntables designed especially for digitising your crusty old vinyl for years, but ION's LP 2 Flash deck one-ups all that I've seen by recording straight to an SD card or USB thumb drive for quick transferring to a computer or recording straight to your PMP. And if you get tired of being so retro, it'll reverse the flow and play any MP3s you have on your cards or disks, outputting to your stereo via standard RCA jacks. It's a UK import for now, at a price of £130 (US$228).

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This was unexpected. Today Telstra, through its BigPond Music service, announced that it will be selling DRM-free MP3 tracks from all four major labels, plus a heap of independents. Previously, they only sold WMA tracks that "Played 4 Sure" - or in other words, didn't play at all.

The move to DRM-free MP3 means that you can listen to these tracks on pretty much any device, including your iPod. To the best of my knowledge, it also makes BigPond the second service in the world (behind Amazon in the US) to sell DRM-free music from all four majors.

The tracks are encoded at either 256Kbps or 320Kbps, which is as good as it gets for MP3 files from an online store.

This is a fantastic move from Telstra - DRM is one of the biggest drawbacks of buying music online. Considering that MP3 tracks are still only $1.69 in the MP3 format, the question has to be asked - why would you use iTunes (unless buying iTunes Plus tracks) when you can get a DRM-free version for the same price from BigPond?

[BigPond Music]